Facebook messages
It’s very well known that today text messages are much more popular than phone calls. They are quicker to send, they are usually answered faster and you get to choose when to respond and to think before sending. Even so, sometimes we get the wrong window or we simply answer something we didn’t intend. For this very reason, many messaging clients have added the choice to delete a previously sent message before it’s seen by the receiver. The only ones not to offer this option are Facebook, but today they seem to have realized the error of their ways.
Facebook hears our pleas
A while ago, users reported that no other than Mark Zuckerberg had sent them messages, only to delete them mere moments later, causing rumors to spread all over as users have been asking for these options for a while now. Then, Facebook promised that we would hear news about this tool soon, only to ignore the subject completely until now. According to the press release, they have been considering the idea for a while now, they talk about pros and cons, ensuring that is something good that users want to have more control over the app and if they made a mistake it’s obvious to want to fix it, however they also claim that message deleting would open the door for cyberbullying, which Facebook is strongly against.
Unsend, revised and limited.
After careful consideration and making some changes to the back end programing of the platform, finally Facebook has launched the “erase for all” button, which looks just like the one on WhatsApp, you click the message, the button comes out, you click it and a little tombstone marks that a message was erased. Facebook has given us a time limit of 10 minutes after sending the message to erase it, while Facebook will be keeping those messages for some more time to give users the chance of reporting messages that have been erased to ensure the safety of all of its users. The sad part, though, is that this tool is limited for now to Poland, Bolivia, Colombia and Lithuania, although they plan to eventually launch it world wide.
Tweets need to catch up
On this day and age, in which we have a closer connection to users through instant messaging, it’s important to keep these kind of updates present in our minds. One can never know when a small mistake can turn into a PR nightmare. This way we can have a little peace of mind, knowing that we can erase and correct any typo that might make us look bad. On a side note, we still can’t edit tweets, get a grip, Twitter!
Sources
www.socialmediatoday.com
www.techcrunch.com